The impact of religion and modernity on luxury consumption in an Arabian Gulf community: does self-construal matter?

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the simultaneous impact of religion and modernity on attitude toward luxury consumption in Qatar, with emphasis on the mediating effect of self-construal. The authors propose the idea that self-construal is a significant mediator through which religion and modernity influence attitude toward luxury consumption.

Design/methodology/approach

The data for this study are sourced from a survey of 190 Qatari respondents. The conceptual model is estimated using both the covariance-based and the partial least squares structural equation modeling techniques for the purpose of robustness check.

Findings

The results indicate that religion has a positive and significant association with both independent and interdependent self-construal. The impact of modernity on independent self-construal is positive and significant, while its effect on interdependent self-construal is not significant, implying that modernity has no impact on individuals’ interdependence in the Gulf communities. Moreover, the results reveal that self-construal significantly mediates the effect of both religiosity and modernity on luxury consumption attitude, as expected.

Originality/value

The originality of this article lies in investigating the impact of religion and modernity on attitude toward luxury consumption through the self-construal paradigm. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study examining the simultaneous impact of religion and modernity in a Muslim community, from a self-construal perspective. Second, unlike the prior studies, this paper addresses the issue of non-normality in the data using the maximum likelihood robust estimator.

Citation

Ebaidalla, E.M. and Malkawi, A. (2023), "The impact of religion and modernity on luxury consumption in an Arabian Gulf community: does self-construal matter?", Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol. 14 No. 10, pp. 2622-2643. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIMA-05-2022-0137